Rick Perry Says Prayer, Not Gun Control, Will Keep American Children Safe From Violence

6:12 pm - 01/17/2013

Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) has revealed his own plan for combating America's violence problem -- and it differs from President Barack Obama's on a key point. Specifically, the former presidential candidate said that instead of enacting tougher gun control legislation, Americans should simply pray for protections.

Perry said that there was "evil prowling" in the world that has appeared in television and movies, and then found its way into vulnerable minds.

As a free people, let us choose what kind of people we will be. Laws, the only redoubt of secularism, will not suffice. Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help. Above all, let us pray for our children.

Perry also assailed the liberal media and politicians for attempting to use the Sandy Hook shooting for a political end "that would not have saved those children," according to the Chronicle.

"Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you, and one of the untruths out there that is driven -- is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena," Perry said on a conference call with Rick Scarborough.

Perry's appreciation for prayer is also well-documented. He endorsed and helped organize a "Christian-only" prayer event in August at Houston's Reliant Stadium that drew the ire of the Freedom from Religion Foundation organization.

This idea that prayer is the ultimate protection, even against guns, has been circulated among the conservative Christian community in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting.

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Why would anyone believe a God that would send mass murderers as a punishment for not being devout enough is worth praying to anyway? Were all of the Sandyhook and Aurora victims and their families atheists who deserved to be punished for their wickedness, or were they innocents God used as an example to scare the rest of us back in line? Religious cognitive dissonance makes my head hurt.

ETA so glad this guy did not win the republican nomination, let alone the election.

And then there's Mike Huckabee saying that Sandy Hook murders were because we took God out of schools....which smacks of blaming the victims. If he was talking about the shooter, well Adam Lanza was home schooled!

As a matter of fact, many - if not most - of those children attended churches or synagogues. But I guess that's not good enough. You have to pray in schools to count?

(not you, just in general) I know. Perry is just fucking stupid. Logic, reasoning...all beyond him. Considering how he's fucked the Texas education system, I have to wonder if screwed with it to make sure everyone else in Texas was just as stupid.

Were all of the Sandyhook and Aurora victims and their families atheists who deserved to be punished for their wickedness, or were they innocents God used as an example to scare the rest of us back in line?

This is the implication that bothers me, because if it's so, why would anyone worship a "god" like that? I'd say that any higher power who did that was no god at all, and probably on the other side.

Why would anyone believe a God that would send mass murderers as a punishment for not being devout enough is worth praying to anyway?

I can see why you need to pray to scary God who demands sacrifice and rah rah hellfire-- it's all that "rule by force" stuff. I'd want to keep the monster happy too, and if the monster demands faith, well.....

And while I can go "nope my God is the compassionate one of infinite forgiveness and second chances," if you're really raised to believe that the universe is governed by a vindictive prick, the idea of not worshiping for fear of what happens is pretty overwhelming.